Oscar Essay

The movie that I personally thought was worthy of an Oscar was 127 hours. This movie was about an independent climber that got himself into a life threatening situation when he fell in a  crevous and a boulder fell onto his arm. Its about his survival and how through the 127 hours he's there he changes and overcomes this extreme obstacle. Though a little short of action, this movie was never boring and kept me interested the whole time.
Lighting in this movie, was very literal. Throughout the movie he got limited sunlight each day, as the crevous hid the sun for most of the day. The darkness of the crevous, provided a doomed feeling for the audience as anybody could see he wasn't ever getting out of that hole. To me the sunlight represented hope for him and, literally, shed some light on the situation at hand (no pun intended).
In this movie, there were a lot of frontal shots, especially as he was facing his own camera, talking to his family. I enjoyed this aspect alot because you could really absorb all his emotion and intimacy. You saw only his face, which in and of itself portrayed lots of emotion and when we watched the movie through his video camera lense, it made it seem as if we were actually there, which i thought was sweet.
As for angles in this movie, the oblique angle shots towards the end really caught my attention. When he finally cut his arm off and was climbing down trying to find help, the oblique angles captured his physical instability as he was exhausted, weak, dehydrated etc...Again, this angle realy helped put the audience, as much as it could, in his shoes, showing what it must have been like to feel like him in those moments. Some other angles used where low angle shots and high angle shots. The low angle shots were mainly shot from the top of the crevous looking down on him showing how far down he was and almost literally, showing how deep of trouble he was in. High angle shots, portrayed from his view, showed how "far" away his freedom was, his way out. From his point of view, the top of the crevous was soo far up and made it seem hopeless for him. Both of these shots, i think, were the most commonly used shots in the movie as the majority of the movie he was in one spot. However, there were several long shots and extreme long shots, to show his location and how far away he was from civilization or help. It's start by showing the crevous, then zoom out more to show the surroundings, then even more to show the vast desert like landscape showing how stranded he was.
In general, I thought the movie was pieced together greatly and every aspect of it really helped me feel how stuck he was. There are a few more elements that I could analyze that were in this movie but the ones I've explained previously are the ones that stood out to me the most.  Though slow in action, James Franco was, in my opinion, genius and it definatley has my vote.

Apocalypto Critique

I guess for this movie I want to talk about two elements that stood out to me. The first element is lighting. I noticed throughout the movie that the lighting changed significantly as Jaguar Paw got into his situation and than throughout his escape. At the beginning of the movie everything was "natuarlly" bright. The sun was shining and the mood of the movie was happy/easygoing. This lighting shows that the characters and their lives are not troublesome. Later on in the movie, as he is making his escape and fulfilling the profecy, it is shadowy, dark and rainy. At this point Jaguar Paw is getting chased and he is killing of his followers as he trys to make it back to his family. The mood of the scenes are intense amd dark as he has to kill these people and "evil" is chasing him. You also notice almost at the very end of the movie when the Spanish ships arrive that it is raining, possibly showing us that them arriving is not a good thing. The last example of lighting is the very end of the movie, when he is reunited with his family. The rain has stopped and there is a more peaceful shade (if u can picture this) on the scene.
The other element that I want to talk about is Angles. There were various angles used thorughout this movie and it really helped to clarify whats going on and whose in what position. The hunting scene in the very beggining of the movie has the father seen through a low angle shot showing that he is a leader and more important person in the shot. We also see this kind of shot when they are in the city and focused on the "emperor" character of the city. He is abviously an imortant person as he is seen as an almost God to the people. There are several high angle shots in this movie, especially when the the captured are taken into the city. The scenes are shot from the top of that pyramid shaped structure and it shows us everything. It shows us as the audience the whole city and everybody in it. With this shot we can see everything going on below it. Also, with this shot, it is similar to the others as it shows dominance and importance in the scene. One more example of angles is the chasing scene, when the "leader" of the hunting group is going after Jaguar Paw. The angle in this scene was a high angle/ almost birdseye view. This was used not necessarily to show dominance but rather to give us the full view of the action. From any other angle we might not be able to see as much as we see with that angle. It shows space between, speed, obstacles in the way...etc.
This movie has several elements all of which make it a great movie. These elements were the two that stood out to me the most and for me, made the movie more intense and understandable as a critic.